Rb To Fungus Your Followers

Learning by doing: my approach to self-studying languages

Hi! I have a very short attention span, and I have never really been able to make it through a course or textbook without giving up straight away, so I have never really been able to learn languages in the traditional way. I also very easily get bored with learners material, so I mostly stick to native material to consume my target language. Here is how I do it at the beginner level! 

I usually start off with an app to learn the basics of the alphabet,  vocabulary and grammar. Most of the times, I use Duolingo. I rarely get past the first few units before I jump into native material. Still, this is a good jumping off point.

When I start with native material, I usually use YouTube videos (with subtitles in the target language), and focus on spoken language, because spoken language is less overwhelming, and involves less complex language and grammar. At this point, I find that books are far too dense and complex for me to handle. Others might enjoy the challenge. My current favourites for this are LingoPie (for French, Spanish, German, Italian and Russian) and Viki (for Korean, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese).

I learn the most important words and phrases as I go. I do NOT look up every word, unless I can understand at least 70% of the language. For this, I will try and write the words and phrases down, and memorise them. I might use a flashcard app too (Anki is my fave, but Quizlet and Memrise are good too). For languages like Japanese and Chinese that have lots of characters to memorise, I will use an app (wanikani and chineasy are my faves). I always make sure that I know how to pronounce and understand each word or phrase.

I will start texting native speakers in my target language on apps like Tandem and HelloTalk. I look up words as I go, and will ocasionally try speaking.

I start shadowing (i.e. repeat after native speakers, imitating the intonation and pronunciation). I use Easy Languages for this.

After a while, I start reading. I’ll usually start with wikihow articles, or fluentu articles in my target language. I’ll write down new words, test myself on them until I get them correct, and then put them into anki to review.

After a while, I’ll formally study some grammar. I’ll usually use a textbook for this. However, I don’t necessarily do it in a traditional way. I go through the entire textbook and make a cheat sheet which condenses all the information in it to a few pages. I’ll review it regularly, and do LOTS of writing practice. For irregular verbs, I’ll just use flashcards, and write them down repeatedly.

Then, I’ll get a speaking buddy (I usually find one on discord) and speak with them a few times a week.

After a while of doing all of this, I start reading fanfiction (usually translations of my faves). It’s difficult, but I try to read intensively (i.e. look up every word).

At this point, I start journaling, and posting on the website journaly.

I’ll listen to podcasts like innovative languages, coffee break languages and language transfer. These are usually good for learning about grammar.

I start intensively reading serious content once I feel like I’m at a confident B1 level. I would suggest using proper newspapers (like le monde for French or BBC for English) and try studying one article daily. After a while, you can start reading a YA book (try something you’ve never read before in any language). Study it chapter by chapter fairly intensively, and then reread it again and again until you understand the story. After you’re finished with a chapter, put the new vocabulary into an app and review fairly regularly.

At the B1 level, listen using two sources: intermediate podcasts and native material. Intermediate podcasts are usually labelled as such, and are IN the target language, but about various topics, like culture or history (innovative languages have some, for french there is inner french, piece of french, news in slow french and RFI:Savoirs, for Spanish there is dreaming Spanish and news in slow spanish, and for Korean there is Iyagi). For native material, continue watching youtube videos about topics that interest you, and consider watching both the news and films/TV shows.

At this point you should be able to construct gramatically correct (mostly - if you still have problems then go through a grammar course, or work through a textbook) and fairly complex texts. I would suggest now learning some essay phrases and writing an essay. You’ll be terrible at first, BELIEVE me, but the more you practice the better you get. You could also start trying to write fanfiction (tip: use full phrases you have found in other books or fanfiction).

Continue doing what you are doing (reading intensively and widely, speaking with your buddy, listening, writing essays and short stories) and I think that after a while you will be able to say you are conversational in another language.

Thanks for reading this post! I hope it was useful! (Also haha ig my break from langblr is over lol).

The ramen noodles crop is coming in nicely in the Icelandic highlands this year!

JK, that's Alectoria ochroleuca

freaky fungi fact - mycology vocab :-)

deliquescence : the process of certain fungi (most often ink caps) where they turn to liquid.

this process is observed in a handful of different fungi !! as their caps mature, they furl inward & turn to a spore-filled, inky liquid.

yes, this liquid can be harvested & used for actual pen ink. :-) just make sure to add preservatives to avoid it causing a rotten smell.

to use it in a sentence : the mushrooms above are experiencing deliquescence ; they are deliquescing !! ink caps are deliquescent.

things i did as a neurodivergent person to get straight a’s for the third year in a row

hi hello hi how’s it going. welcome to the 3am-burst-of-motivation-tumblr-post-of-the-day, where i’m sharing all of my study tips that allowed my adhd/austism/ocd/bpd brain to somehow squeeze out straight a’s for the third year (sixth semester) in a row. 

1. study differently for different subjects. contrary to popular belief, flashcards and rewriting your notes does not work for every subject (unless it does for you, in which case ignore me and do what works for you). different subjects, at least for me, require different environments, techniques, and associations. 

2. association! sensory stuff works great for me because i tend to associate physical things with emotions and even personality types, so have something be constant every time you study. example: i have two tubes of chapstick, one peppermint and one pomegranate. i put on the peppermint one right before i go to bed and the pomegranate one after i eat breakfast - i associate the different scents with different activities (going to bed and starting my to-do list). 

3. to-do lists! mine are written on sticky notes and stuck to my mirror because i hate hate hate having the sticky glue stuff from sticky notes on my mirror and i’m not allowed to clean my mirror until all the sticky notes are off of it. when i can’t see my mirror, they’re on the outside of my backpack because they’re bright pink and the social anxiety makes me think people are staring at me if they are on my backpack. 

4. change your location often. specifically for my adhd peeps who have the attention span of an overexcited puppy, walk around. do things. go to a park or a coffee shop or a grocery store or a sidewalk or a bench somewhere or my personal favorite, the bank. when you’re understimulated go somewhere with lots of different noises and when you’re overstimulated so somewhere quiet or control noises (listen to music, noise-cancelling headphones, humming). 

5. keep a piece of paper next to you for the Random Thoughts That Come at Inconvenient Times and write down the stuff you want to look up/do/tell someone about and like… i don’t even know why that helps but it does. just having your thoughts out there i guess?

6. body doubling. find a person who will study with you. bonus points if it’s another neurodivergent person. they are depending on you to finish the studying and get the good grade. THEY ARE DEPENDING ON YOU. DON’T DISAPPOINT THEM. (side note anxiety people i would not recommend this for you)

7.  go to a place that will remind you to pee and eat and drink things. starbucks is great for this. so are most restaurants. 

8. get a new thing to study with every week. i like new things. if i have a new thing i am going to use it until it’s no longer exciting. i get a pencil, just a boring, manual pencil from the drugstore every monday afternoon for like sixty cents. it’s a fantastic method, at least for me. 

9. don’t drink something with caffeine in it while studying. you will either fall asleep or end up on a roof. it is not a good situation. caffeine for neurodivergents is like sleep pills, for me at least and most of the other ND’s i’ve met. if not for you, you’re lucky. 

10. spaced reps. in other words, find a big pair of dice and write vocab terms on each side, then hurl it at the ground and define each term. do this for like an hour. it’s fun and gets a lot of energy out. 

11. stim. vocal stims, physical stims, self-talk, fidget, yelp, squeal, tap your foot, walk around, shrug your shoulders, twitch your nose, jump up and down, ribbit like a frog. stim, stim, stim. it helps. 

anyways. it’s 3:17 am. happy studying!

An aroace pride flag?

PERRY THE AROACE PRIDE FLAG??

same

as an aroace, im particularly dangerous, because i wont fuck or marry. i only know how to kill.

How to Unfuck Your Sleeping Space in a Few Hours (A Mentally ill Adults Advice)

The thing about living with mental illness for 15 years (only 10 of them diagnosed and medicated) is that you cycle through a few sets of coping mechanisms, each more healthy than the last. 

If you, like me, are chronically depressed and anxious with su*cidal ideation it can be easy to get yourself into a place where every part of your life is fucked up. If you, unlike me, have not been dealing with this for very long, it can be hard to know where to begin in the process of unfucking it. Some parts are easier than others - sorting your sleeping space is objectively one of the more manageable. 

In fact, I find it personally the most manageable, because when my bedroom is fucked, I don’t even want to wash myself - for me, this is the first step in unfucking my life. For you it might be the second or third, either way I urge you to let my decade and a half of experience help you if it can; you don’t need to struggle to figure this out alone just because I had to. 

Side note, if my profanity offends you I wish you all the best, but literally do not give a flying fuck into a rolling jam donut - Peace Out  ✌️

Unfucking Your Sleeping Space - Zen in the Art of Practicality

I know there’s a part of you that demands perfection, but tell it to get fucked. That little bastard voice has no idea what its like to be you and if getting a college certificate, a bachelors degree, and a masters degree has taught me anything its that this:

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly” G. K. Chesterton

Is true. Seriously. Washing just your face is better than not washing, writing five bad lines is better than not writing, and half assing a cleaning day is better than wallowing in your own filth. 

Here’s how to half ass cleaning your living space in style. 

1. Take Off that Dirty Shirt and Use it as a Duster (Put a Clean One on Too, You Adorable Dumb Dumb)

Go to the bathroom, put a little water on it and use that shirt to wipe away dust, debris, and any spilled drinks, makeup, etc. This has the added benefit of making sure that you dont put that dirty ass shirt back on - don’t argue with me, I know its been on for more than a few days. 

2. Throw All Clothes From the Floor into the Washing Basket

Unless you’re at crisis point you can actually wash them another day, but get them off your damn floor so that you can see the thing. Look, isn’t that better? Take a breath, drink a glass of water - I know you just want to lie down, but we’re nearly there. 

3. Wipe the Crumbs Out of Your Bed and Spray Fabric Freshener

If you can’t face changing the sheets, take the duvet off, wipe out any crumbs, pull the sheets tight and straight again, and spray some fabric freshener, bodyspray, or hell even some perfume. Leave the duvet off while you do the next step. 

4. Put Books in the Bookcase, Magazines in a Pile, and Rubbish in the Bin/Trash

Clear your surfaces as much as possible. Books away, magazines in a pile, throw makeup into a box or bag until you can deal with organizing it, and put all rubbish/trash in a bin or bag. 

5. Open the Windows and Empty Your Bin/Trashcan

Throw those windows and curtains open and empty the bin/trashcan.  Leave the bin bag with your main bin/trashcan if you need to, just get it out of your sleep space. Once you’ve done this have another glass of water, wash your face, even if its just with handsoap and water, put the duvet back on your bed and climb back into it if you have to.

This may not solve your problems, but when you wake up to a cleaner, fresher, brighter bedroom with a clean face and shirt, the day might just seem a little more manageable. 

If you found this helpful, please consider supporting me via Ko-Fi at https://ko-fi.com/chaoschaoswriting - tips are absolutely not required, but very much appreciated. 

after almost a month and a lot of procrastination, I am happy to finally present: The CSGNF Intro to Programming Manifesto!!!!

PART ONE: SO YOU WANT TO LEARN TO CODE

When discussing learning how to code in general, I think it helps to think of an analogy where writing code is way more like building a car engine than it is writing an essay. When you write a program, especially more sophisticated ones, you’re putting together a lot of individually working parts that either you make yourself (such as functions) or the language provides for you. Debugging is the same way: you can slam out an essay and then look at it later and use the end product to figure out what you need to edit, but if you build a car without testing any of the parts first and it doesn’t turn on you have no idea what part of the engine is giving you trouble. 

One of the biggest “tips” I have is to start with the basics and build fundamental knowledge before jumping straight to big projects! A lot of material online follows the model of “become a software engineer in a week” and starts at a really high level—you’ll have a much easier time long term if you start with computing and coding basics rather than “how to code a first person shooter with no experience.” I really liked TheNewBoston’s introduction to networking series. While networking is very different from programming, they build off of the same fundamental computing concepts, and they also have series on specific languages and frameworks as well. 

Some of those videos are from as early as 2012, which seems like it would be outdated, but while frameworks and some new technologies change, the basic concepts of computer science have stayed the same for like 50 years. The languages I’ve done the most work in (C++ and Python) were first released in 1985 and 1989 respectively! They’ve gone through lots of updates since then but the basic concepts are all still there. 

Another tip I have is to pick an end goal and then learn the programming language that will help you program that project in the end! Once you learn one language it’s pretty easy to pick up other ones, because the concepts of programming translate across all of the major languages. for example, I started learning to code with C++ (about 5ish years ago), and have since done work in C, C#, Python, Java, JavaScript, and some other front end & database technologies. With our car engine analogy, think of like building a Toyota engine vs building a Subaru engine. They probably come together in different ways and utilize different parts, but the basic pieces and patterns are going to translate between the two. 

All that is to say: just choose a language based on what the thing you want to code is! A quick google search can usually give you a good idea of the best one for your project. Do you want your end project to be a Minecraft plug-in or mod? learn Java! Do you want to make a website to talk about how much you love your favorite twitch streamer? Learn HTML! Do you want to write a game in unity? Learn C#!

PART TWO: WHERE DO I LEARN TO CODE?